Post-pardom

 Baby Garrett is 9 days old.  The first week wasn't bad at all, because my mom spent half the time at my house cooking and helping me care for the kids, and the other half she took Caleb and Angie to her house and let them play with their cousins for a while.  During my time home alone with just one baby, I couldn't help but wonder how I EVER thought that I needed my mother's assistance after only having one child!!!  It's so easy!  Baby sleeps, so you can sleep.  No two-year-olds saying "Mommy get up!!" and demanding food, drinks and attention while you wonder around in a haze from getting NO SLEEP.  All I can say is that I am SO grateful for the help she gave me last week.  And I'm allready missing her so much, and wondering how I'm ever gonna manage by myself.

Garrett is a wonderful baby!  He eats just about every 3 hours on the dot.....unless he has awake time after a meal......then he likes to be topped-off once he gets tired again, and then he usually sleeps for 3-4 hours straight.  He hardly cries, and he's just such a joy to have in our home.  I just love him and his chubby cheeks and webbed toes. 

As for me, I KNOW I've recovered faster for this baby than any other pregnancy.  But even so.....I've never had to chase 2 other kids while recovering either.  It's a good thing I'm recovering fast....cuz this 3 kids thing is kinda kicking my butt.  Honestly I don't even mind the getting up in the middle of the night, if it weren't for Angie who wakes up at 7:00 ready to go.  And half the time I've just finished feeding the baby from 6:00 to 7:00.....so there's no going back to bed.....when it's ALL I want to do.  I hope the baby starts sleeping through the night soon.........I have this constant headache at the front of my forehead that NEVER goes away.  It makes all the hours and days blend together in a continuous haze.

I'm not complaining really.  It comes with the territory.  And suddenly all moms with 3 or more kids are my heroes.  I don't know how you all did it.  Of course, the same as everybody else.....one hazy day at a time. One thing I'm experiencing that I'd completely forgotten about is HOT FLASHES.  I kinda remember getting them after Angie was born. I have moments where I'm freezing cold and need a sweater.  Then as soon as I get it on, my body temperature kicks up several degrees and suddenly I'm sweating.  It's the worst at night.  I'll crawl into bed freezing, and then wake up 20 minutes later COVERED in sweat.  I've decided walking around with a blanket on my shoulders is better than a sweater because I can just throw it off instead of peeling my arms out of sleeves when they're usually holding the baby, or I'm strapped to the breast pump or something. 

Tomorrow is Garrett's 10-day check up.  I hope he's gaining weight again because that means he's that much closer to sleeping through the night.  He really is so precious.  I'm grateful to have 3 healthy children.

Garrett Parker Lyons

 Sunday, I went to church, came home and ate some lunch, sent my husband off to work at the "Reba" concert in Jackpot, and then went into labor.  Good times!  Hah.  Actually, I won't lie, it wasn't bad at all.  Just a few songs into the concert, and I called Parker and told him I'd had a few contractions, and that they were more painful than anything I'd experienced this pregnancy so far.  Not too bad or anything, but I told him he should probably come home.  By the time he was 10 minutes away from the house, I was wishing he were home allready.  The kids were needing fed, and not to mention fighting with eachother, and I was in pain.

We called Tresa and had her daughters, Shelby and Courtney come over and watch the kids until grandma and grandpa could arrive.  I was worried about coming to the hospital too late (which is what happened with Angie) and so we packed a bag and left the house around 7:45 PM.  My contractions were about 10 minutes apart.

When we arrived, we discovered I was dilated 7 cm's.  (Which was no surprise to me, because I'd been 4 cm's for two weeks!).  The nurses seemed so surprised at how calm I was, and about how well I handled the contractions.  Anyway.  The Doctor (Dr. Crandall) recommended that I get an interthecal instead of an epidural.  I was surprised at this.  I'd come so early!  (I'd only labored for about 1 hour at home before leaving for the hospital).  He said that I was progressing so fast, that an epidural might take too long.  I was genuinely concerned about having to deliver a baby without anesthetic.....so I asked the anesthesiologist for his honest opinion and recommendation.  And we went with the interthecal.  1 hour after it was administered, baby Garrett was born.  Not too shabby.  Labor was quick.  Less than 6 hours total. 

Garrett was born at 11:47 PM.  He was 8 lbs 10 oz and 19 1/2 inches long.  He has a full head of golden-brown hair.  I've never seen anything like it!  It's beautiful!  (My other kids didn't really have hair).  He is a wonderful baby!!  He hardly cries, and he eats SOOO much!  It's been crazy because he's allready SOOO big!  I have all these newborn clothes, and he's gonna out-grow them before he even gets to wear them all!  It's kinda sad to watch as a mommy.....I feel like he's allready too grown-up and he's only a few days old.  Like I've missed out on weeks of him being an itty-bitty neworn, and now he's allready this big.  I know these first few weeks of his life are going to FLY....and it's allready making me sad.  But he's beautiful, and I can't complain about anything.  My body is recovering quite well too.  Much faster than with the other 2 pregnancies. 

 My kids love their baby brother.  Angie has had her moments....she is a 2 year old after all.  But she loves her baby brother too.  She likes to hold him, and help me feed him.  She is very curious when I use the breast-pump....and it's slightly annoying.....but I suppose we'll all get used to it

 Baby Garrett looks a lot like his siblings.....but he has is own unique features too.  The most noticeable being his chubby cheeks and thighs.  My kids never get lots of baby fat, but Garrett DEFINATELY has more than the other tow....possibly combined.  He's got Caleb's chin, and Angie's nose.  And I like to call him my "little duck" because he's got webbed toes on both feet. 

My mom has been here helping me out so much.  Mostly she cooks and then cleans the kitchen. I can't even express how much of a relief it is.  I just don't know what I'm going to do once she leaves.  Parker has been home this entire week as well.  He has helped out a lot with the kids.  He keeps them distracted and happy.  I haven't had to do much yet......I hope I'm not too overwhelmed when I finally have to face life with 3 kids on my own.  So far, I'm just super sleepy and my body is still a little bit achy.  But I really have nothing to complain about.  My kids are beautiful, and I have an awesome family here to help me. 

Nat-Soo-Pah

 Last Wednesday we decided to go swimming at Nat-soo-pah.  It's only about 20 minuts from our house, and it was really nice to do something fun while all the family was still together.  Robyn and John came with their kids, as well as Travis and Jill with their family, and aunt Jayne, and grandma and grandpa.  The water temperature was PERFECT, and the kids loved the water slide.

 I did not swim, because I don't have a swimsuit to fit over my huge belly right now.  So I just walked around the pool and took lots of videos and pictures.

Angie wanted to spend the entire time in her yellow tube....but I really wanted to get her used to being in the water, so I had Parker take her out a few times.  Every second she wasn't in that tube, she had her arms wrapped around the neck of whoever was holding her.  But, she seemed to prefer Grandpa to do the task. She really is quite the "grandpa's girl."  She prefers both of her grandpas to just about anybody.  And of course grandpa is a sucker for her little pleas "pa-pa hold me!"

While we were there, I was SOOO surprised at how much Caleb's confidence level has changed this year compared with last year.  He used to be afraid to jump off the side of the pool, much less the diving board.  And he's always preferred to wear his lifejacket as a kinda security blanket.  But this time, he took off his life jacket 5 minutes after he started swimming....and he never put it back on!  He's become quite the little fish.

Caleb even surprised us all on the diving board!  First of all, he jumped without his lifejacket, and his daddy WASN'T waiting to catch him!  I mean, Parker was a few strokes away watching, just incase.  But Caleb didn't jump straight into his arms.  And then to top it all off, he did a front-flip without even telling anybody!  It kinda stopped my heart for a second.  And then I was so proud!  I did get it on video, but blogger takes FOREVER to upload videos.  I might be able to get it on youtube though.

I can't believe it's our 3rd summer here and it's the first time we've been there.  We've allready decided we need to go back.  We stayed until it was dark outside.  Angie even made her way to the hot-tub (which wasn't all that hot) by herself.  As Caleb was climbing out of the pool to go on the slide for the ump-teenth time, he said to me "Mom- I'm NEVER going to stop!"

Welcome Home Uncle Garrett

Last week Parker's little brother, Garrett, returned home from his mission.  Parker and I took work off so that we could spend the day with the family to celebrate his return.  

 It really was quite amazing that everybody was able to be there.  It's the first time the Lyons family has ALL been together in a long time.

 After picking him up at the airport, everybody came to our house in Filer, and we had a barbeque lunch. 

It's been good to have Garrett home.  He was such a good missionary.  It's fun to see him try to integrate life with mission-life.  He's a great example to all of us.

Last Week

Last week Garrett got home from his mission.  I'll do an entire post dedicated to that once I get some time to upload the pictures.  But just hours before his plane got in, I went to the doctor again.  Apparently I'm dilated 4 cm's and 60% effaced.  Sounds like this baby could come at any time.  I spent the entire weekend thinking I'd go into labor any second.  But not so much.  I really shouldn't get myself too excited....I'm still 2 weeks from my actual due-date.  But it's hard, when the other 2 were both early, and I just feel so.......huge and ready to be done.  I was REALLY hoping I'd not have to work this week cuz I'd be having a baby.  But it's just one more week. I plan on being done after this week anyway.  So here's to my LAST WEEK of work.  We'll see if I make it.  This baby had better come before Robyn and John go back to Las Vegas on Sunday.  Of course babies are notorious for screwing-up your plans and coming when they're darn-well good and ready.  So we'll see.

GBS

Today I went to the doctor again. I'm 36 1/2 weeks.  I got my Group-B Strep results back.  And guess what?!  It was NEGATIVE!

This was some wonderful news for us.  It means we'll save THOUSANDS of dollars on hospital bills because I won't have to stay 2 days.  It means they won't have to tell me, "You're dilated 10 cm's but we can't let you start pushing just yet because we need to get another bag of antibiotics in your IV before we begin."  It's never really made sense to me that you can be positive for one child (or two in my case) and then negative for the next.  But hey.....I'm not gonna argue either, because I'm just happy that when I get that feeling that says, "Man I would really like to go home now." I CAN JUST GO!  So yeah, if you see someone doing a little happy-dance between now and the time of delivery, that'd be me rejoicing in something as simple as the absence of bacteria in the birth canal. :)

4th of July in Jackpot

For the past 2 years we've watched the fireworks at CSI in Twin Falls.  I have to say....I've never been a huge fan.  The city is so crowded and the streets so busy that even if you ARE lucky enough to find a good spot to watch, you're sharing it with so many other people.  And then of course the traffic-jam to get outa there once it's all over.  Then I also heard a rumor that the city didn't raise as much money for the fireworks this year.....so they're gonna be shorter. Parker suggested we go to Jackpot this year, since he had to work anyway.  Good idea.  I've heard Jackpot's fireworks are pretty good.  So Parker car-pooled to work that day so that I could bring the kids down around 5:00 and we'd be able to all ride home together.  It worked out really good, actually.

On the morning of the 4th, I found some red hair flowers to put in Angie's hair.  She looked SOOO GROWN UP!  I won't lie.  I never thought I'd actually SEE the day when I could do something with her hair.  She looks like a completely different child!  And she, loving all things girly, not only LET me do her hair in pig-tails, but left them in all day too. 

I arrived in Jackpot around 5:20, and we went down to daddy's office and met his new boss.  Then we went up to the casino floor and had dinner in one of the restaurants "The Desert Room."  It's pretty yummy.  And the kids ate their food really well.

After dinner we went over to the park for a little bit and let the kids play.  Then Parker decided we had enough time to kill before the fireworks to play 9 holes of golf.  Parker has a season pass at the Jackpot golf course, which includes the cart.  This was good for me, because I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have been able to walk 9 holes.  I can barely walk around the neighborhood.

Caleb was VERY excited to get to golf with his daddy, since he's been doing a lot of practicing in our new back yard.  Just about every evening Caleb gets out his golf club and hits a bunch of balls over the fence.  The next day, our kind neighbors have tossed them all back over for us, and Caleb hits them again till they're all over the fence again.  Anyway.  The point is, he's getting quite good at hitting the ball.

We figured out that Angie happened to fit perfectly in the basket on the back of the golf cart.  This was good because I don't really have a lap for her to sit on right now.  And to top it off, she LOVED it back there!

It was such a relaxing evening!  The golf course was almost completely empty, so Parker had plenty of time to work with Caleb on his swing and his putting.  And Caleb is getting old enough now, that he's actually listening to his daddy instead of insisting on doing it all by himself.

After golfing we still had about 1 hour before the fireworks went off.  Tresa Hansen (my daytime babysitter) was also in Jackpot with her family, so we met up with them at the church.  The Jackpot branch had some activities going on there, and it turned out there were quite a few people from Hollister and Filer there as well.  It was kinda more of a stake activity than just the Jackpot branch.  So we picked out a spot on the grass at the church to watch the fireworks. 

The church building was actually quite close to where they were lighting off the fireworks, which always makes for a good show.  This was the big seller for me.  In Twin Falls if you wanna get a view like that then you have to actually go to the CSI campus......and it is such a ZOO to get in there, and even worse to get out.  Not to mention constant traffic in-between.  Jackpot may take an hour to get there......but I don't have to worry about my kids running out into the street and getting hit by a car.  And nobody lit off their own fireworks either!  So you didn't have to worry about walking into a bottle-rocket war or something. 

And to top it off....Tresa's kids were there, and my kids just ADORE them!  And they were able to help keep track of my 2 little crazies, and I think it made it more fun having people you know around.

The show started at 10:15 and it lasted 30 minutes.  It was really awesome!  Parker and I decided we're going to Jackpot every year now.  It was SOOO much better!  The kids had so much fun too.  I was able to get a shot of Angie in the light of the fireworks.....it turned out kinda cute. 

The one down-side was that the fireworks ended at 10:45 and so we really didn't get home until midnight.  But the kids fell asleep in the car, and Parker and I decided that once the 4th falls on a weekend....we'll just stay at Cactus Pete's for the night and not worry about the drive home. 

So if you live in Twin Falls County....fireworks in Jackpot is definately the way to go.